Rohtang snow, Kullu Dasehra fail to attract tourists

Abhinav Vashisht

Kullu, September 30

The recent fresh snowfall in Rohtang and the coming Kullu Dasehra festival have failed to attract tourists to Manali. Hoteliers rue that the poor condition of the Mandi-Kullu road has hit the tourism hard.

They say that hotels have been experiencing poor occupancy for the past three months and there are few bookings in near future.

Manali Hoteliers Association (MHA) president Mukesh Thakur says that earlier the Dasehra season used to be good but this year, there are fewer bookings this year.

The bad condition of the road is the major cause behind the decline in the tourist influx.

He says that the tourists are also preferring to stay in Lahaul after the opening of Atal Tunnel Rohtang.

A hotelier Vinay says that they had high hopes of an increase in tourist influx due to fresh snowfall in Rohtang, but their expectations have been shattered.

A travel agent Pranab says that sometimes heavy rains, which are frequent in the region, are exaggerated as cloudbursts and the reports spread like wildfire, courtesy social media.

Many of his customers had cancelled their bookings after the frequent news of cloudbursts and landslides went viral on social media platforms.

He said generally the tourist count increases during the Dasehra festival but this year there are very few enquiries.

Hotelier Budhi Prakash Thakur says that the terrain between Mandi and Takoli has become vulnerable to landslides due to the ongoing construction work on four-laning of the highway. An advanced landslip warning system should be installed in the region and adequate machinery should be readily available on the stretch.

Budhi Prakash says that an adequate number of police personnel should be deployed to regulate the traffic.